An OAP stalker whose seven year campaign of harassment drove a female GP to a nervous breakdown has been banned from entering eleven English counties.

Last month Raymond Knight, 74, was jailed for five years for his ongoing campaign of harassment against mother-of-two Dr Eleanor Aston, who lives in Cheltenham and practices in Gloucester.

The builder, who laboured under the delusion the GP was his lover and the mother of his child, had been harassing her for the past seven years.

Today Knight was back in court - although he refused to leave his cell - for an application by the prosecution to ban him from a huge area of southern England and South Wales to keep him away from the doctor and her extended family when he is released.

Judge Jamie Tabor approved the order which prohibits Knight from going to the doctor's family's home county of Essex as well as to Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, South Gloucestershire, Bristol, Wiltshire and Somerset.

Dangerous: Raymond Knight will be banned from 11 counties after his release from jail (Image: GNS)

The judge ruled that on the day Knight is released he will be able to return to Gloucestershire to collect his car and belongings but must be with a police escort at all times.

And Judge Tabor warned that if Knight breaches the order he will ban him totally from the southern half of the country.

"If he breaches this order I shall make a new order that does not allow him into the southern half of England and he will have to go to Bradford or somewhere like that - which may be a deterrent," he said.

Knight is currently serving his sentence at Exeter Jail.

Before he was sentenced he was required to live in a bail hostel in Weymouth and not enter Gloucestershire.

Today prosecutor Kannan Siva handed the court a map outlining the counties which the crown wants Knight to be barred from as part of a restraining order to protect Dr Aston and her family.

He said: "We are asking for this exclusion zone bearing in mind the long standing history of harassment of the victim in this case.

"We say that bearing in mind the protection that is necessary these are proportionate measures."

James Burke, defending, did not object to the exclusion zone but said Knight did not currently know how it would affect him.

Vicitm: Knight began stalking Dr Eleanor Aston when he was her patient (Image: GNS)

Judge Tabor said that as Knight will probably have to serve at least another two years in jail before being paroled he could always apply to the court later to amend the prohibition zone if necessary

Mr Burke said he was aware that the probation service had already been talking to Knight about possible accommodation in Swindon when he leaves prison - but Judge Tabor ruled that was "too close."

Last month the judge said it was "absurd" that he was not entitled to pass a longer term than five years on retired builder Knight, who has been obsessed with Dr Aston for the last seven years.

He first met her as her patient.

He then had a delusional romantic relationship with her and was sending her cards and flowers.

Dr Aston, whom Knight imagined had been his lover and the mother of his child, was said to be in a "fragile and vulnerable" state and unable to work because of the stallking.

In May 2013 Knight, formerly of Mandara Grove, Abbeydale, Gloucester, was jailed for three years eight months for his harassment of the GP

But soon after being paroled at the half way stage of his sentence he sent threatening messages to her home and her surgery.